fluent is a para-institution for contemporary art and research presenting cycles of consecutive exhibition modules, texts, and live events revolving around thematic axes. Founded in 2016, fluent aims to carefully unfold experimental practices in close collaboration with artists, thinkers, writers, researchers, and the community. These cycles are places where projects (with no programatic input) are hosted, and serve as imaginative tools for coming societies.

Cycle 1. Material UncertaintyAugust 2016 – May 2017

Through various forms of speculation and debate on how can we use material culture in order to form methodologies that incorporate uncertainty as an strategy, the season Material Uncertainty centred around ideas of material instability, expectation and suspense, foregrounding the necessity to reflect on how uncertainty has become a key aspect in truly critical practices.

How do uncertain conditions affect our thinking, decisions and behavior? What kind of situations we face when we talk about uncertainty?

Through a number of exhibitions, seminars, performances, screenings and lectures the programme analysed ways through which humans have tried to speculate, predict and anticipate material behavior, as well as its potential relationships with socio-political and the current moment of ecological urgency.

Cycle 2. Aesthetics of ContaminationMay 2017 – May 2018

Rather than outwardly engaging with an idealised notion of nature, Aesthetics of Contamination unfolds the potential of contaminaion as the common ground where technology, nature and society inform each other. The programme explored ways in which people can feel a sense of strangeness and displacement where the relationship between the individual and the environment is a never-ending, viral transformation.

As György Kepes relates in his introductory essay to Arts of the environment, there is a large gap between the socio-cultural and biopolitical systems in which contemporary societies are registered. Thus, participants will explore other modes of cultural and urban ecologies. Departing from this premise, the programe served as a framework for theoretical and practice-based reflection on those social and cultural acceptances that play a major role in determining our perception of nature.

Contemplating the emotional attachment of societies to their environments, Aesthetics of Contamination unfolded as an assemblage of cultural detritus where ideas of territory, human materiality, mortality and empathy are charged with symbolic and political connotations.

Cycle 3. Forests, Ghosts, Clouds, StonesJune 2018 - (...)

As our environments become increasingly soft, more cloudy and ghostly, there is a sense that in the vastness between oceans, jungles and celestial bodies, immaterial forces are at work.

Paying attention to the notion of invisibility as intrinsic to current forms of organisation, Forests, Ghosts, Clouds, Stones unfolds structures of knowledge grounded in the vernacular, ghostly and ritual aspects of reality. It reflects on how invisible entities shape and connect our physical habitats, underlining the importance of interdependency in the experience of a foggy world.

The exhibitions and events within this cycle explore the ghostly character of nature, from its politics to its representations in the present moment, while looking at the continued relevance of the parallels between natural phenomena and social structures.

fluent is a para-institution for contemporary art and research presenting cycles of consecutive exhibition modules, texts, and live events revolving around thematic axes. Founded in 2016, fluent aims to carefully unfold experimental practices in close collaboration with artists, thinkers, writers, researchers, and the community. These cycles are places where projects (with no programatic input) are hosted, and serve as imaginative tools for coming societies.

Cycle 1. Material UncertaintyAugust 2016 – May 2017

Through various forms of speculation and debate on how can we use material culture in order to form methodologies that incorporate uncertainty as an strategy, the season Material Uncertainty centred around ideas of material instability, expectation and suspense, foregrounding the necessity to reflect on how uncertainty has become a key aspect in truly critical practices.

How do uncertain conditions affect our thinking, decisions and behavior? What kind of situations we face when we talk about uncertainty?

Through a number of exhibitions, seminars, performances, screenings and lectures the programme analysed ways through which humans have tried to speculate, predict and anticipate material behavior, as well as its potential relationships with socio-political and the current moment of ecological urgency.

Cycle 2. Aesthetics of ContaminationMay 2017 – May 2018

Rather than outwardly engaging with an idealised notion of nature, Aesthetics of Contamination unfolds the potential of contaminaion as the common ground where technology, nature and society inform each other. The programme explored ways in which people can feel a sense of strangeness and displacement where the relationship between the individual and the environment is a never-ending, viral transformation.

As György Kepes relates in his introductory essay to Arts of the environment, there is a large gap between the socio-cultural and biopolitical systems in which contemporary societies are registered. Thus, participants will explore other modes of cultural and urban ecologies. Departing from this premise, the programe served as a framework for theoretical and practice-based reflection on those social and cultural acceptances that play a major role in determining our perception of nature.

Contemplating the emotional attachment of societies to their environments, Aesthetics of Contamination unfolded as an assemblage of cultural detritus where ideas of territory, human materiality, mortality and empathy are charged with symbolic and political connotations.

Cycle 3. Forests, Ghosts, Clouds, StonesJune 2018 - (...)

As our environments become increasingly soft, more cloudy and ghostly, there is a sense that in the vastness between oceans, jungles and celestial bodies, immaterial forces are at work.

Paying attention to the notion of invisibility as intrinsic to current forms of organisation, Forests, Ghosts, Clouds, Stones unfolds structures of knowledge grounded in the vernacular, ghostly and ritual aspects of reality. It reflects on how invisible entities shape and connect our physical habitats, underlining the importance of interdependency in the experience of a foggy world.

The exhibitions and events within this cycle explore the ghostly character of nature, from its politics to its representations in the present moment, while looking at the continued relevance of the parallels between natural phenomena and social structures.